"Where choral writing is going."

Originally Posted by flint-wwrr

Not to split hairs, but I treat "singers" and "vocalists" very differently.

Vocalists are musicians whose instrument is voice. Vocalists are trained musicians, read music, and are generally musically knowledgeable. Vocalists are usually prepared, learn their music outside of rehearsal, and act professionally.

Singers are trained dogs. Singers almost can never read music, they learn by rote memorization, and generally take up the bulk of space in most choirs and musical productions. Singers learn nothing outside of rehearsal - they can't read music! Singers are never prepared, and reliance on rote memorization means that they go through little material, as they are continually having to re-hash and re-learn material they've forgotten.

I very rarely work choose to work with Singers.

Arooooo!

That's a really, REALLY weird division. For me singer is someone who... well, sings.

There are better singers than others, and methods may vary. But uh, the only difference I can probably make is a solo singer and a choir singer. That's mostly in technique and repertoire. Some singers work in choirs, some rather do solo careers.

I don't really know where you got your grudge, but well. Just weird that's all.

I don't know about all the American composers you guys keep talking about so much, but there's some really exciting church music being written in the UK at the moment. Maybe the church is a bigger musical force over here, I dunno. Tarik O'Regan (Tarik O'Regan) is definitely one of my favourite composers right now; you can listen to, and look at the first page of, pretty much all of his works on his website (there are some nice instrumental ones too). He tends to mix exciting rhythmic ideas with stuff taken from plainsong, often experimenting with unusual choral textures like that you'll see in the A1 and A2 lines if you go to the last 'choral and vocal' piece on page five of this section under the heading 'samples' on his website (it's called 'Gratias Tibi'). His newest pieces, 'Scattered Rhymes', are particularly rhythmically complex - I think one choir is largely notated as in plainsong, to use speech rhythms, and the other conventionally notated (he certainly does this for his 'Magnificat' anyway). It's a beautiful and intriguing way to create 'wash of sound' textures without relying on counterpoint; the effect does remind me a lot of 15th and 16th century polyphony (especially Palestrina Missa Papae Marcelli for some reason). Still, pretty much all of his music feels very modern. In his 'Dorchester Canticles' he writes for organ, 2 choirs, harp and percussion (if I remember correctly), and the percussion really makes it that bit more fantastic. I think it's very exciting and possibly a new direction for choral writing, especially in the church.

Jonathan Dove is another one I like a lot at the moment; he creates very exciting textures again, above all else, mainly by complex imitation throughout parts of reasonably uncomplicated ideas, a good example being his anthem 'Bless the Lord, O my Soul' (there are a few good recordings but the choir I sing in broadcast this on Radio 3 Live Evensong on Sunday, it should still be at BBC - Radio 3 - Choral Evensong - Live from Sheffield Cathedral - go to 35 mins and wait about 3, then it starts). (His operas are great too).

I'm really into choral music that is led by creating evocative textures; Whitacre does through 'nice' crazy harmony, Stockhausen etc. through 'weird' crazy harmony (and more weird stuff like whispering and whistling), and now these guys largely through rhythmic and textural interest and complexity, and a treatment of stuff like plainsong with new vigour. I couldn't disagree more with whoever it was that said choral music has run out of new stuff to do.

(Edit: if anyone does listen to that broadcast, at 35mins exactly is the end of the Responses by Gabriel Jackson, another interesting modern composer. It's quite Whitacre-ish, now I come to think of it.)

Jonathan Dove!! I heard his opera Tobais and the Angel!!!
Really interesting stuff. It was nice and my teacher Robert Cantrell and a good friend Lori Hultgren were both leads in the opera and said it was really challenging, but really rewarding. Jonathan Dove....good man.

Haha, I havn't heard Tobias and the Angel, but I did listen to 'Flight', which was pretty damn cool. You seem to have very similar tastes to me lol. I listened to 'The Rose and the Grave' - pretty moving stuff. Who performed it?

(Ps. I corrected the links in my post above).

I also really like 'Flight.' This past semester I took a course on contemporary European opera and we listened to that. Another opera that used its chorus in an interesting fashion was Kaja Sariaaho's 'L'amour de loin,' about 12th-century troubadour Jaufré Rudel.

Terve:
Yea, I mean we both know who Butterworth is!! haha
The Baltimore Choral Arts Society..it was just a reading after a 30 min rehearsal.lol not a "performance".

I also think that, as far as British church music goes, James MacMillan has some good stuff going - he's the composer-in-residence for Westminster Cathedral. It's highly contrapuntal and vaguely Eastern-flavored, and most definitely inspired by chant.

O yea! James MacMillian is crazy!! His stuff is so interesting.

MacMillan is doing chant inspired stuff? For Westminster Cathedral? Interesting. That I'd like to hear! The Eastern-flavoured thing is rather fashionable in Britain at the moment thanks to John Tavener.

That's a really, REALLY weird division. For me singer is someone who... well, sings.

There are better singers than others, and methods may vary. But uh, the only difference I can probably make is a solo singer and a choir singer. That's mostly in technique and repertoire. Some singers work in choirs, some rather do solo careers.

I don't really know where you got your grudge, but well. Just weird that's all.

I see where you're coming from, but I also see what Flint means. The distinction is between singers for whom singing itself is the primary focus, as opposed to singers who are musicians first and whose instrument just happens to be the voice, and it doesn't necessarily fall along the lines of solo and choral singer. There are people who have both magnificent voices and great musicianship, but they are relatively rare; in reality, the distinction Flint speaks of is a fact of life and a real consideration. Depending upon the application of course, as a composer I'd rather make use of the singing musician. I'll take a somewhat less stellar voice with great musicianship over an opera singer who can't count or sightread any day. If I can get both, it's gravy.

Absolutely. I'm going to need a whole passel of vocalists for this opera coming up in the spring - one character sings mostly in meters based around 13/8 - and another's music has a very TENUOUS grasp on tonality. Even the chorus needs to be able to read and pull pitches out of very little.